The present invention generally provides methods and systems for identifying one or more queries related to a given search query written according to a language with multiple writing systems. More specifically, the present invention provides methods and systems for receiving a search query written according to combinations of one or more writings systems of a language with multiple writings systems and identifying one or more related queries from a candidate set of queries.
With the advent of the Internet and the multitude of web pages, media content, advertisements, etc., available to a user over the World Wide Web (“the web”), there has become a need to provide users with streamlined approaches to obtain relevant information from the web. Search systems and processes have been developed to meet the needs of users to obtain such information. Examples of such technologies can be accessed through Yahoo!, Google and other search provider web sites.
Currently, users may employ client devices (such as personal computers (PCs), PDA's, smartphones, etc.) with access to wide area networks, e.g., the Internet, to search for and retrieve content. Typically, a user inputs a query via a client device and a search process returns one or more items of content, such as links, documents, web pages, advertisements, etc., related to the query. The items of content returned in response to a given query may be closely related or entirely unrelated to the subject or topic that the user was actually seeking. The success of a given search, which may be measured based upon how closely related the items of content retrieved are to a given query, may depend significantly upon the proper interpretation of a search query.
A query is made up of one or more words and phrases. Queries entered by human users, however, often fail to adequately describe the content that a given user may be seeking. Moreover, users may have only a general or vague idea of the content they may be seeking. For example, a user may wish to conduct a search, using the Yahoo! search engine, for a product advertised on television. The user may not know the name of the product, the manufacturer, etc., and may only be able to generally describe the product. Therefore, the query formulated by the user may be too broad, resulting in the retrieval of content items entirely unrelated to the content sought by the user. Similarly, the query terms selected by the user may fail to adequately describe the product, resulting in the retrieval of few if any content items.
Current techniques are known for generating a candidate set of queries that may be related to a given query. For example, a user may enter the query “Apple® MP3 player” and be presented with one or more related queries, such as “IPOD®,” “Itunes®,” etc. Search providers, however, are presented with the challenge of identifying one or more queries from a candidate set of queries that are the most relevant or closely related in meaning to a given query. Moreover, certain languages such as Japanese have multiple writing systems, which further increases the complexity of identifying queries from a candidate set of queries that are the most relevant or similar in meaning to given query. For example, a single Japanese query submitted to a search engine may be written according to varying combinations of one or more Japanese writing systems, such as Kanji, Katakana, Hiragana, JASCII, ASCII, etc. A query written according to the Japanese Kanji writing system may look entirely different than a query written according to the Japanese Katakana and Hiragana writing systems, however, the two queries may have very similar or identical meanings.
Additionally, search providers, such as Yahoo!, MSN, or Google may utilize a bidding marketplace whereby advertisers may bid upon terms in order to have one or more advertisements displayed in response to a query. For example, one or more advertisers may wish to display one or more advertisements for laptop computers and accordingly may bid upon the terms “notebook computer.” The terms “notebook computer,” however, may be written according to one or more writing systems of a language with multiple writing systems, such as Japanese. For example, the terms “notebook computer” may be written according to the Japanese Hiragana writing system, the Japanese Katakana writing system, etc.
A user may submit a query comprising the terms “notebook computer” to a given search provider, such as Yahoo!, written according to the Japanese Katakana writing system. The one or more advertisements with associated bids for the Katakana terms “notebook computer” may be retrieved and displayed to the user. In a bidding marketplace, the advertisement associated with the advertiser that provided the greatest bid for the Katakana terms “notebook computer” may be displayed in the most prominent position of a web page, e.g., ranked first in a ranked list of advertisements, displayed at the top of a given search results page, etc.
If the user selects one or more of the advertisements displayed, the search provider may monetize the selection of the user, such as by charging the advertiser associated with the advertisement selected an amount of money based upon the advertiser's bid. Retrieving and displaying only the advertisements that have associated bids for one or more terms, however, may result in a significant loss of revenue to a given search provider. For example, if a user enters a query comprised of terms that have not been bid upon by one or more advertisers, the search provider may fail to return any advertisements to the user, resulting in a loss of revenue to the search provider as the user will be unable to select any results. With reference to the abovementioned example, if the query entered by the user did not comprise the Katakana terms “notebook computer,” but instead comprised the Hiragana terms “laptop computer,” the search provider may not display properly targeted advertisements despite the similarity in meaning of the Katakana query “laptop computer” and the Hiragana query “notebook computer.”
While techniques exist for identifying one or more queries from a candidate set of queries that are identical or similar in meaning to a given query, existing techniques are limited to languages written according to a single writing system. Current techniques thus fail to provide for the identification of queries that are most relevant or closely related in meaning to an original query that is written according to one or more writing systems of a language with multiple writing systems. In order to overcome shortcomings associated with existing techniques, the present invention provides systems and methods for identifying one or more queries from a candidate set of related queries that are the most similar in meaning with respect to a given search query, written according to one or more writing systems of a language with multiple writing systems.